Funding Opportunities for African Businesses

Oluwatomi OtuyemiOctober 29, 2022

19 minutes read

Funding Opportunities for African Businesses

Association Of Commonwealth Universities (Acu) Early Career Conference Grants 2023 For Emerging Researchers.

DEADLINE: MONDAY 28, NOVEMBER, 2022

For emerging academics, taking part in conferences can have a profound impact on their teaching research. These events are a chance to share research, learn about the latest developments in an area of work, and build valuable professional networks. Researchers find themselves better informed and better connected with new knowledge that can be shared and multiplied among colleagues and students.

Early career conference grants help to ensure that more emerging researchers – and the universities that employ them – can benefit from these valuable opportunities.

This year’s grants are being offered for both virtual (online) and in-person conferences.

There are 25-40 grants available. The final number awarded will depend on the number of applications for each formats (virtual/in-person)

Eligibility requirements

Applicants must:

Be employed by an ACU member university with a job title of lecturer, post-doctoral researcher, professor, associate professor, or equivalent.
Be within 7 years of the start of their academic (research/teaching) career, with the exception of those who have had career breaks. A career break is a period of time out from employment for personal or professional reasons, including to care for children.
Not have previously travelled for work purposes (including conferences) outside their region of employment since the start of their academic career.
Not have be a previous recipient of an ACU early career conference grant (previously known as early career academic grants)

Applicants must identify a specific conference before applying for the grant.

The conferences must take place between 1 April and 30 September 2023. High quality conferences organized by universities or academic bodies of good standing will be prioritized for selection.

For virtual conferences, the grants cover:

Conference registration fee of up to £50 GBP

A data grant of £50gbp for successful applicants who do not have reliable access to Wi-Fi.
Free access to a half-day training session on how to deliver great virtual presentations

For in-person conferences, grants are a maximum of GBP 2,000 to cover:

Conference registration fee
Flights
Accommodation
Visa costs
Travel and health insurance
Covid-19 testing for travel

Application requirements

As part of the application form, applicants must:

Give details of their chosen conference, including a copy of their abstract.
State whether the conference is virtual or in-person (for hybrid conferences applicants must choose whether they wish to attend in-person or virtually).
Choose the sustainable development goal(s) which relate most closely to their research and describe how their research can contribute to achieving these goals.
Explain the reasons for their choice of conference and how it links to their research interests.
Explain how participating on the conference will benefit their career and professional development.
Explain how they will share the knowledge gained by participating in the conference.
Provide a detailed letter or email of support from their head of department commenting on the suitability of the conference and how participating in the conference will be beneficial.
If applying for an in-person conference, give a breakdown of the costs for which they are applying for funding.

Successful applicants will be required to submit a report on the use of their grant by 31 October 2023.

For more information:

Visit the official webpage of the ACU early career conference grants 2023.

2. Open Call for Innovative Approaches to Modeling of Women’s Health Issues: Grant of up to $500,000 USD

Deadline: 16-Dec-2022

Submit applications for Strengthening Modeling and Analytics Capacity and Ecosystem for Women’s Health for innovative approaches to modeling of women’s health issues or of broader health topics that incorporate a gender lens.

The Challenge

They are looking for projects with a 1-to-3-year timeline that will achieve at least one of the objectives:

Increase the number of trained modelers, especially women with gender expertise based in low-income and middle-income countries
Achieve a better understanding of issues that disproportionately affect women through modeling
Improve engagement with modeling approaches to support strategic planning and/or evaluation work
Ideally, proposals should also:
Bring together discrete modeling units across low-income and middle-income countries to share expertise
Enable South-South data-centered collaborations, knowledge transfer, and build on & strengthen existing initiatives and ecosystems
Foster innovation with data in the interest of their respective local communities and achieving equality in access to health care
Improve data collection, sharing, governance, regulatory compliance, and analysis processes to enable data-centered and gender aware public health research and interventions
Explore and improve how to build and strengthen the interface of modeling with policy engagement leading to increased adoption of insights to yield impact.

Funding Information

The funding level for the Building Data Modeling Capacity for Gender Equality Project is a grant of up to $500,000 USD, provided to the organization, with a term of up to 1-to-3-years. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work proposed.

Eligibility Criteria

Collaborative proposals that are led by investigators in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) – they particularly encourage applications from women-led organizations and applications involving projects led by women
Proposals that have the potential to have impact on addressing women’s health issues within the proposed budget and timeframe of 1-to-3-years
Proposals that are gender intentional or transformative:

Gender intentional investments will, through novel modeling and analytical approaches, increase understanding of impact that gender gaps/barriers have across relevant global health fields
Gender transformative investments will, through novel modeling and analytical approaches, increase the understanding of empowerment on reduction of gender gaps/barriers across relevant global health fields
Should demonstrate that their approach will increase knowledge and understanding of gender barriers in modeling OR Should display how their methodologies would show impact alleviating a known gender gap/issue would have across relevant global health fields
Proposals should also highlight existing expertise around gender and modeling and how it will contribute to both novel methods and expanding the ecosystem
Proposals that demonstrate enhancement of the data value chain for gender intentional modelling

Proposals that have timely access to necessary data. Focus on improving gender modeling capacity in women’s health in LMICs
Proposals that articulate how the project will lead to impact in the near-term and how those benefits will be sustained past the lifetime of the project
Proposals that demonstrate engagement with local and/or regional decision makers
Proposals that are driven by a shared commitment to open science, data sharing, and building collaboration and analysis infrastructure to enable discoveries that will benefit people everywhere

Note: Global partners may be included. However, priority will be given to proposals that demonstrate at least 80% of the funding is going to LMIC institutions and where the PI is a part of an LMIC institution.

Ineligible

They will not consider funding for proposals that:

Aim to collect and generate new data through this funding
Are not gender intentional
Are not collaborative
Do not focus on women’s health or incorporate a gender lens into broader health topics
Do not engage local and/or regional decision-makers or do not have a plan to do so
Do not demonstrate that the work proposed will be led and undertaken by investigators and scientists at institutions based in LMIC
Do not have timely access to necessary data
Do not demonstrate a pathway to decision making that results in sustainable impact on gender equity and women’s health issues
Do not demonstrate a clear commitment to open science and making their findings, processes and/or tools developed accessible and reusable.

For more information,

Visit https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/strengthening-modeling-and-analytics-capacity-and-ecosystem-womens-health

3. WFP Innovation Challenge 2022: Call for Bold Solutions to disrupt Global Hunger and achieve SDGs

Deadline: 03-Nov-2022

Do you have a startup with the potential to tackle the global food crises? If so, the World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Challenge 2022 is now open for applications.

The WFP Innovation Challenge is in search of game-changing innovations addressing the Global Food Crisis. This Accelerator sources, supports and scales bold new solutions to disrupt global hunger and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

They are specifically looking for low and high tech solutions including digital tools. They also encourage strong “wildcard ideas” to apply. Together with the brightest and best minds globally, they will be able to end hunger. WFP’s current innovation priorities are listed below:

Innovative solutions to mitigate the rising cost of inputs and food.
Innovative solutions to strengthen productivity and outcomes along food value chains.
Innovative solutions to build resilient communities through livelihood creation and youth engagement.

What they Offer?

Selected teams will be invited to participate in an intensive week-long WFP Innovation Bootcamp in February 2023.
Selected projects will be able to apply for the WFP Sprint Programme, a six-month acceleration programme providing up to US$ 100,000 in equity-free funding, mentorship, and access to WFP’s global network of partners and field operations across more than 120 countries and territories.
Scaling innovations that have proven their concepts and value for social impact may qualify for further funding and support.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator has a track record of organizing 45 flagship innovation bootcamps to date, supporting over 395 teams to rapidly refine their innovations, field testing over 100 projects within WFP operations, and bringing 16 disruptive innovations to scale, reaching 9 million people in 2021 alone.

What they are looking for?

For this edition of the Innovation Challenge, they are specifically looking for low and high tech solutions including digital tools. They also encourage strong “wildcard ideas” to apply. Together with the brightest and best minds globally, they will be able to end hunger. WFP’s current innovation priorities are listed below:

Innovative solutions to mitigate the rising cost of inputs and food.
They are specifically looking for low and high tech solutions including digital tools to:
- identify the most suitable alternatives to enhance soil fertility, water retention and soil structure for a given area, using locally available resources and reducing expenditure and reliance on chemical inputs;
- Enable last-mile delivery of food and agricultural commodities to areas that are hard to reach due to floods and disasters;
- Improve the efficiency of farming methods and practices (modern or adopted from ancestral or traditional methods), leading to savings and environmental benefits (e.g. increasing the affordability and availability of fertilizers, compost, pesticides and fertilizer-based products, reducing the water usage, etc.);
- Support farmers in accessing agricultural inputs and equipment, post-harvest insurance, climate risk insurance, risk financing tools, especially women farmers.
- Innovative solutions to strengthen productivity and outcomes along food value chains

Thus they are specifically looking for low and high tech solutions including digital tools to:

Detect and prevent leakages at every step of food value chains;
Decrease food waste and crop damages due to post-harvest management issues, limited agro processing capacity and decreasing rainfall;
Enable farmers to tackle water scarcity due to rain shortages, salinity or limited access to irrigation;
Prevent cost effective solutions for aflatoxin prevention and management;
Increase yields of staple crops and resist climate shock;
Forecast and monitor food prices for commodity planning to improve and democratize decision making processes at all levels during emergencies and in supporting the government;
Be able to automate food inventories in schools.
Innovative solutions to build resilient communities through livelihood creation and youth engagement

They are specifically looking for low and high tech training, education and employment solutions including digital tools to:

Support youth engagement and foster livelihood creation;
monitor and assess the outcomes, generate evidence and ensure quality control of school; based programmes such as drop-out, retention, graduation and enrollment rates;
Be able to operate in rural areas with low to no connection to strengthen public school systems and national social protection systems, especially during periods of insecurity, conflict, or natural disasters;
Support young people to develop agriculture skills (e.g. training on the maintenance of solar water pumps, soil analysis, compost making, etc.);
Enable remittance with innovative delivery models to tackle exchange rates fluctuation and hyper-inflation.

Eligibility Criteria

Applications will be scored according to a standard set of criteria set by the WFP Innovation Accelerator, including:

Alignment with WFP operational priorities and the impact towards the Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger.
The level of innovation the solution brings to WFP and the humanitarian sector at large.
Indicators that the solution can be feasibly integrated and financed in the long-term, including the team qualifications.

If you are a start-up:

Your start-up must be incorporated at the time of application. It can be for profit or not-for-profit.
Your innovation must at least be at the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage. Proof-of-concept and initial traction is preferred.
Your solution should be financially viable.
Your proposal must show how working with WFP will serve your long-term strategy.

For more information, visit https://innovation.wfp.org/apply

Also Read: Funding Opportunities For African Business

4. International Trans Fund (7th Grant Cycle): Apply for Seed Grants and Thrive Grants

Deadline: 12-Dec-2022

The International Trans Fund (ITF) is pleased to announce its 7th grant cycle. ITF welcomes applications from trans-led organizations with budgets below $100,000 USD based in any region of the world.

The ITF was created to mobilize sustainable resources to help build strong, trans-led movements and support collective action, and to address and eliminate funding gaps impacting trans organizations across the globe. The purpose of the ITF is to:

Build & Sustain the Fund | Develop and sustain a mechanism to support trans-led groups of different sizes working on a range of issues at the international, regional, country and local levels, with emphasis on smaller groups with limited resources.
Resource Trans Movements | Increase and enhance access to resources to support trans movements by increasing financial resources dedicated to trans-led organizations and groups; providing access to non-financial resources for trans organizations, such as skills building, organizational strengthening, leadership development and activist support; and improving advocacy in philanthropy to increase access to new donors.
Educate Philanthropic Community | Educate their peers in the philanthropic community on Trans issues and influence other funders and strategic allies in Trans related commitments and strategies.

Their Priorities

The ITF has priorities for their grant making:

Fund a diverse collection of groups, inclusive of various identities, strategies and issues, languages and regions.
Prioritize trans communities facing greater levels of marginalization (e.g. racism, classism, ageism, ableism, misogyny and so on).
Support trans-led organizations whose work is intersectional and contributes to economic and social justice, movement building, and the liberation of trans people.

Grant Types

The ITF has two grant types:

SEED Grant (1-year)

The SEED grant is a 1-year general support and/or project grant for trans-led organizations that have never been funded by the ITF, or that prefer to apply for this grant instead of the THRIVE Grant. Grants range from $10,000 to $25,000 USD/year.

THRIVE Grant (1-year)

The THRIVE grant is a 1-year general support grant ONLY for trans-led organizations that have been previously funded by the ITF and are in good standing. Grants range from $25,000 to $50,000 USD/year.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for funding organizations must meet the following criteria:

Be trans-led:

Trans people must be in decision-making roles, including setting the organization’s strategic and financial priorities, and make up 75% of the staff, spokespeople, and Board or decision-making body.
If this is not the case, organizations must demonstrate how trans people make budget, organizational and strategic decisions.
Have an operating budget under $100,000 USD.
Be a group of people (i.e. not an individual).
Main focus of work is to benefit the trans community.
Contribute to movement building, not just providing direct services.
Applications that do not meet these criteria will be found to be ineligible and will not be reviewed by the Grant Making Panel.

Ineligible

What They Do Not Fund the ITF does not fund the following:

Individuals.
Organizations that are not led by trans people (even if they are working on trans issues).
Organizations that do not do work specifically to benefit trans people or communities.
Organizations with operating budgets above $100,000 USD.
Organizations and projects that only provide direct services to individuals without contributing to trans movement building in some way

For more information,

Visit https://www.transfund.org/our-grants/apply-for-a-grant/

5. 2023 Anzisha Prize: A Chance to Win USD $200,000 in Business Support and Prize Money

Deadline: 27-Nov-2022

Have you heard the news? Africa’s Biggest Award for Youth, “2023 Anzisha Prize” is now officially open! If you are a young African Entrepreneur trying to grow a small business or you’ve created something that provides you and your friends with an income – then they look forward to receiving your application in our 2023 cycle.

Now in its 13thyear, the program has taken on a new shape and will run for three years per cohort. At the end of the three years, the fellows will graduate and join the Anzisha Prize alumni network.

30 finalists from across Africa will be selected for the fellowship program yearly. Here they will receive high-touch support for their business and their entrepreneurial journey. Their performance will be tracked throughout the three years to assess growth and progress. Businesses that show exemplary growth and initiative are rewarded with benefits and services such as short courses, cloud services, and cash stipends.

The Anzisha Prize has championed and supported over 200 Very Young Entrepreneurs throughout the African continent. The fellowship is a three year program that celebrates and rewards business growth.

Categories

The Grand Prizes are split into 4 categories

The Job Creation Prize
Revenue Growth Prize
Storytelling Prize
Integrating Systems and Processes Prize

Prize Information

The Anzisha Prize is Africa’s biggest award for her youngest entrepreneurs aged 15 – 22 years, and hands out over USD $200,000 every year in business support and prize money to very young entrepreneurs from all over the continent
At the end of the second year, entrepreneurs will pitch their businesses and successes for a chance to win shared Monetary Reward to the value of $140,000 over three years including grand cash prizes valued over $50 000.

Eligibility Criteria

You must be between 15 and 22 years old with an ID document or Passport to present as evidence. Anyone born before September 1, 2000 or after August 31, 2007, will not be considered.
You must be a national of an African country with a business based in Africa for African customers/beneficiaries.
The Anzisha Prize isn’t awarded for great ideas or business plans – you must have already started, and be able to prove it! Get started now and ensure you have tangible results to share before applications open.
Your business, invention or social project can be in any field or industry (science and technology, civil society, arts and culture, sports, etc.). Any kind of venture is welcome to apply.
Individuals who apply must be one of the founding members of a business (for example, 2 or 3 co-founders who started up the project together).

Judging Criteria

To be selected as one of the Anzisha ventures, your business or project will be judged on the following 5 criteria:

Is your venture established with customers and beneficiaries and are you offering value to them?
Are you, the founder, leading and managing your venture?
Is your venture demonstrating some impact already?
Whether your venture is a for-profit business or cause-based, does it already earn revenues or already reach beneficiaries? Is there potential to increase revenues or beneficiary reach with support from Anzisha?
Has your venture created jobs and is there potential to create more high quality jobs?

To be selected as one of the Anzisha Fellows, you must demonstrate two important qualities:

You are the leader of your venture and you drive both venture strategy and operations.
You spend at least 20 hours a week (or more) on your business and plan to continue to do so after selection.

For more information,

Visit https://anzishaprize.org/anzisha-prize/apply/

6. The German Embassy launches Program for Micro Projects in Rwanda

Deadline: 30-Nov-22

The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany is accepting applications for micro projects in 2023.

This fund is designed to assist projects at grass root level. Your project has to be set up in order to directly fulfil the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the population. Measures such as training, small infrastructures (i.e. water harvesting system), income earning activities and projects to improve the nutritional situation, the health or educational status of the beneficiaries or serve as environmental protection measures are eligible for funding.

Funding Information

The amount available per project is in the range of 5 million RWF to 15million RWF.
The time of execution of the project must not exceed six months.

Eligible Costs

This amount is supposed to cover costs for materials of the project, in general

Excluding costs for labor (simple jobs for helpers), meals and transport of

Participants, survey costs or pure humanitarian aid.

In general, fixed charges such as salaries, rent, insurance fees etc. cannot be

Funded.

An adequate contribution of the beneficiaries is expected, which can consist of

Financial contributions or in kind.

Eligibility Criteria

Generally, local non-governmental organizations, self-help groups as well as local administrations and church based organizations can apply for support.
Government agencies, business men or other individuals seeking support in order to establish or improve their services or private businesses do not qualify for this program and therefore applications cannot be considered.
Your project is supposed to improve the living conditions of several beneficiaries. Please note that there is no priority fields as far as a sponsorship for a project is concerned, i.e. this Embassy has supported in recent years agricultural and educational projects as well as small scale industries.

For more information,

Visit https://kigali.diplo.de/rw-en/themen/weitere-themen/-/2149298?openAccordionId=item-2149286-0-panel

Also Read: Funding Opportunities for African Businesses

7. UK: Wiltshire Community Foundation launches #iwill Grants

Deadline: 11-Nov-22

The Wiltshire Community Foundation is pleased to launch the #iwill Fund with an aims to support social action activities that create opportunities for young people aged 10-20, or up to 25 for disabled people, to develop their potential and their capacity to significantly contribute to their community.

Social action involves activities such as campaigning, fundraising and volunteering and has huge potential to create enjoyable opportunities and skills development for young people, and in turn benefit the local people and places.

Principles of Youth Social Action

Successful applicants will show how their project adheres to some of the six principles of youth social action as articulated below:

Reflective – recognizing contributions as well as valuing critical reflection and learning
Challenging – stretching and ambitious as well as enjoyable and enabling
Youth Led – led, owned and shaped by young people’s needs, ideas and decision making
Socially impactful – have a clear and intended benefit to a community, cause or social problem
Progressive – sustained, and providing links to other activities and opportunities
Embedded – accessible to all, and well-integrated to existing pathways to become a habit for life

Priorities

They will prioritize projects that:

Seek to increase participation from young people from less affluent social economic groups and young people who might not usually take part in volunteering, campaigning and fundraising activities, in particular:
- Young people from socio-economically deprived areas and communities, specifically those scoring lower than 20% on the indices of multiple deprivations.
- Young people in areas of economic deprivation and those ethnic groups that have been hit especially hard by the Covid-19 pandemic
Are working with young people at the younger end of the spectrum (10-14 years old)
Build the appetite of young people to continue with campaigning, fundraising and/or volunteering; support habit forming behavior; leave a legacy of behavior/activity after the funding stops
Involve young people in consultation, planning, delivery and evaluation
Give young people the opportunity to learn new skills and develop their character and confidence
Give young people the platform to get their voice heard

The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to £54 million joint investment (£27 million seed funding each) from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities.

Funding Information

Grants of up to £10,000 will be awarded to groups for projects lasting up to a year; with the aim of funding both groups that are well established but also those that are new and innovative, especially those that can reach young people that are new to social action.
Please note requests for over £5,000 will need to demonstrate significant reach and impact e.g. high beneficiary numbers, multiple locations, young people with complex needs, strong outcomes or next steps.

Eligibility Criteria

You can apply for a grant if you are a:

Constituted voluntary or community organization
Registered charity
Not-for-profit Company including community interest companies, limited by guarantee, where the majority of directors receive no payment from the company

You need to be a:

Local or regional organisation only working in Wiltshire or Swindon or in the south/south west of England
Local branch of a national organisation with a local management committee based in Wiltshire or Swindon with your own constitution and bank account

Your organisation must have:

An active voluntary management committee with at least three people who are not:
- Related to each other or in a long-term relationship
- Living at the same address

Your organisation needs the following financial arrangements and documents:

A bank account with two signatories that are not related to each other
Less than 12 months running costs in unrestricted reserves. This means in your end of year financial accounts, Unrestricted reserves (not including Designated funds) must be less than your Expenditure
Financial records or accounts
A recent bank statement
A constitution
A financial plan or budget showing this year’s expected income, expenditure and reserves.
A Safeguarding Policy and an Equal Opportunities Policy.

If you don’t have any of the documents, please talk to them and we will help.
New organisations who do not have the above in place may be able to apply through another charitable organisation.

Ineligible

Individuals
Schools
Statutory bodies such as city, county or parish councils or health institutions
Charities who operate nationally.

For more information, visit Wiltshire Community Foundation.

For more information, visit https://www.wiltshirecf.org.uk/grants-and-support/groups/iwill/

8. Rolex Explorers Club Grants Program

Deadline: 15-Nov-22

The Explorers Club is pleased to announce another installment of The Rolex Explorers Club Grants program.

The Explorers Club and Rolex share a common vision – supporting and fostering emerging young explorers.

Proposals must contain a field science exploration component and address a novel scientific, environmental, or The Rolex Explorers Club Grants sends extraordinary young explorers into the field and promotes the significant role that exploration plays in addressing cutting-edge scientific questions, understanding their environment and the world they live in, and learning more about their history to protect their future.

Funding Information

Historically, awards have been given in the amount of $10,000.

How they define field science for Explorers Club Granted Expeditions?

Field science consists of expeditions that collect data in order to add to the scholarship, or knowledge in a given discipline, bound for peer reviewed publication. Relevant disciplines include, but are not limited to – anthropology, archaeology, wildlife, botany, earth sciences, marine and freshwater research, ecology, geography, paleontology. Priority will be given to expeditions tackling ambitious research questions over survey data. Uniqueness and rarity of the data collected will be taken into account.

Eligibility Criteria

Open to explorers under the age of 35 conducting fieldwork to address a novel scientific, environmental, or historic question.
This program is open to all field science disciplines. In addition to demonstrating a spirit of exploration, candidates must put forward a project or research proposal that has a clear scientific rationale, represents original work, and has the potential for significant impact or new understanding.

For more information,

Visit https://www.explorers.org/grants/rolex-explorers-club-grant/

9. Dorothy Marchus Senesh Fellowship in Peace and Development Studies for Women (US$10,000 over 2 years)

Deadline: 15-Jan-23

The International Peace Research Association Foundation (IRPAF) invites applications for the Dorothy Marchus Senesh Fellowship in Peace and Development Studies for Women from countries in the Global South.

The IPRA Foundation was founded in 1990 as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. The Foundation’s purpose is to promote peace research and scholarship throughout the world.

Funding Information

Amount: The scholarship consists of US$10,000 over 2 years (US$5,000 per year) to cover university expenses for the students.
Duration: Scholarships are awarded for a period of two years.

Eligibility Criteria

The Dorothy Senesh Fellowship is available to women from countries in the Global South who have completed a Bachelor’s degree, who have been accepted into a graduate program, and whose graduate work is to be focused on issues related to the goals of the IPRA Foundation.
Funds will only be dispersed when the selected candidate is admitted into a graduate program. Awards are considered based on need; therefore, students with substantial funding sources are less likely to be considered for the award.

Ineligible

This fellowship is not for research purposes and proposals. Do not apply if you are male, if you are an undergraduate, or if you are not from a country in the Global South.